Zombies? What zombies?

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2003)

"28 Days Later" is a gritty, low-budget UK suspense/actioner, well acted and sharply edited, but not really a "zombie" movie, as its ads claim. More of an apocalyptic plague movie, similar to David Cronenberg's "Rabid"; the "zombies" (referred to collectively as the "infected") are, in fact, living people afflicted with a virulent and incurable contagion that causes instant, murderous rage. (Shades also of "Last Man on Earth," "The Omega Man," and--with its small band of military holed up in a compound--"Day of the Dead," which IS a zombie flick.)
Strange to say, the infected travel in packs, which means they never seem to attack each other. Wonder why not? In any case, the only name we're given for their disease is "rage." It's been isolated in a lab and provided with a viral vector: all Hyde, no Jekyll, and no turning back. One character in the movie suggests that there's nothing particularly wrong with the "infected" that we haven't seen before; it's just the darker aspects of human nature in concentrated form.
Tellingly, the Brits have to defend themselves with such improvised weapons as baseball bats and machetes, thanks to the UK's totalitarian anti-gun laws. Remember the scene in "Dawn of the Dead" wherein American "rednecks" mount a heavily-armed hunting posse, gunning for zombies? Nothing like that here. Only Her Majesty's military have firearms. And in keeping with Machiavelli's observation that there can be no proper relationship between one who's armed and one who's not, they naturally become part of the problem.
It's July 4th as I write this. Hang onto your guns, America. They're the best tools for quickly ironing out the wrinklier problems human nature may present.